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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26032975">Victim of Time</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarpeDiemForLife/pseuds/CarpeDiemForLife'>CarpeDiemForLife</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Malice and Caprice of Time [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>But she doesn't know about it, F/M, Gen, Incest, It's just a character piece on Five in which he is in love with Vanya, Sibling Incest, Unrequited Love, nothing actually happens</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:47:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,499</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26032975</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarpeDiemForLife/pseuds/CarpeDiemForLife</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Five blinks out of the Academy after Luther says something that pisses him off. Vanya comes to find him, and they have a heart-to-heart about Five's place in the world, as a grown man in a teenager's body. Little will Five admit that his relationship with time isn't the only relationship that occupies his thoughts.</p><p>Set in a canon divergent 2019, wherein the Apocalypse has been averted and the Hargreeves are free to now live out their lives. Doesn't acknowledge season 2. Also Griddy's Doughnuts is still standing because I say so.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Number Five | The Boy &amp; Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Malice and Caprice of Time [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893496</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>231</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Victim of Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Contains Fiveya, one-sided from Five's POV. The characters are as portrayed in the show, so if you don't like, please don't read. I personally am very compelled by Five's predicament as a grown man in a 13-year-old body and I wanted to explore that, and since I've become Fiveya trash lately, this oneshot was born.</p><p>Please leave a comment if you like it! Love to you all.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Vanya was the one who came looking for him. Or maybe they all did—heaven knows his siblings are a litter of codependent idiots liable to go into a panic these days at even a temporary separation from one another—but Vanya was the one who guessed best where he’d be.</p><p>She <em>had</em> always known him better than anyone.</p><p>Griddy’s Doughnuts. Closed, its proprietress gone to enjoy the fruits of life with Hazel of all people. But that didn’t stop Five. He liked its familiar walls and seats and colors. Even the curved shape of the counter struck a comfortable nerve in him.</p><p><em>I’m now as stuck in the past as I once was in the future</em>, he thought without much humor.</p><p>At least he was self-aware. That was, Klaus said, the first step to overcoming any problem: recognizing that there was one.</p><p>Well, his problem was <em>time</em>, and even he, a seasoned time traveler, didn’t know how to fix it.</p><p>Vanya sat on the stool beside him. He took a gulp of coffee, fingers clenched around the ceramic mug, almost hard enough to shatter.</p><p>“Luther didn’t mean to upset you,” she said.</p><p>Five huffed bitterly. “Impressive how often he still manages to hit the mark. Like an anti-Diego.”</p><p>Vanya’s smile, while small, was one of genuine amusement. He was grateful that she was the one who found him, instead of any of the others. She was the only one who would be neither snappish nor pitying towards him. All she wanted was to listen and understand.</p><p>“He just wasn’t thinking.”</p><p>“Oh, I think he was,” Five objected, every muscle in his body tight. “He was thinking what he always does. That I’m some…” His face twisted with a sneer. “…<em>kid</em>. Nevermind that I’m <em>decades</em> older than he is, than <em>all </em>of you.”</p><p>“So, what <em>do</em> you want to do now?” she asked, head tilted at him.</p><p>“Not go to high school, that’s for damn sure.”</p><p>Five glared into his coffee. How could Luther even suggest such a thing? The Apocalypse was finally dealt with and they each had the chance to live out normal lives, and Luther’s idea for Five was to enroll him in <em>high school</em>?</p><p>Well fuck that and fuck him.</p><p>All right. In truth… Luther’s thoughtlessness wasn’t Five’s real problem and he knew it. Luther didn’t merit his rage; he was merely a convenient focal point. But every time Five’s thoughts drifted closer to the crux of the issue, the mug in his hands shook from the pressure, promising pain if he didn’t rein it in.</p><p>“You get to live your whole life over again,” said Vanya. <em>Better this time</em>, he heard in her silence.<em> The life you were cheated of. </em>“That’s kind of nice, isn’t it?”</p><p>Five fixed her with a deadpan stare. “Would you want to wake up tomorrow in your thirteen-year-old body?”</p><p>
  <em>Would that erase your trauma? Would that be the same as a fresh start? A do-over?</em>
</p><p>One side of her mouth lifted: amusement, acknowledgment, and apology in one. As if Vanya ever needed to apologize to him.</p><p>He looked back at his coffee, unclenched his teeth, and took another gulp. Cup empty, he grabbed the nearby pot and poured himself another.</p><p>“No, I guess not. Sorry.”</p><p>Their conversation came to a halt and Five drank his coffee in silence. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. It was… friendly. Easy. Minute by minute Five felt the tension drain from his shoulders, even with the added caffeine in his bloodstream.</p><p>Finally, with a sigh, he sagged in his seat, no longer angry. It was hard to maintain a rage he didn’t really feel. In its place other emotions trickled back in, those that clogged his mind and choked him like ash every day he spent without the adrenaline of the Apocalypse clouding his thoughts.</p><p>“Five?”</p><p>“Hmm?” He turned towards her. Even in his younger body, Five was already taller than Vanya, and he was stupidly grateful not to have to look up at her the way he did all the others. Yet another example of why Vanya was—</p><p>Nope. He wasn’t going there.</p><p>“How can I help?”</p><p>Goddammit but her kindness made it so difficult.</p><p>He shook his head and went to take another sip before remembering his cup was again empty. He sighed. “You can’t, Vanya.”</p><p>How could she? He didn’t even know how to help himself. He was a 58-year-old man in a 13-year-old’s body in a world that didn’t, couldn’t <em>possibly</em> understand. What was he meant to do? How to live? Wait three years before driving again? Five years until he was considered an adult? Eight before drinking alcohol? As if. How many years before he could get a job? What sort of job would it be? He was one of the best-educated geniuses in the goddamn world, he wasn’t about to work at McDonald’s just because he didn’t have the paperwork to prove it.</p><p>Truthfully, he couldn’t fathom a job that would keep his interest anyways.</p><p>As he’d been for most of his life, Five was trapped between past and future, existing nowhere, belonging to nothing. Stranded in time.</p><p>If possible, this time was even worse than the Apocalypse. For, now, he had no purpose, no plan, no potential. No promise of salvation to cling to, no goal to reach.</p><p>Who was he? <em>What</em> was he? <em>Was</em> he the child Luther thought him to be? No, he definitely wasn't that. But was he the same man who’d fallen through a portal from 1963 back into 2019? That didn’t feel right either. God, he wanted to scream, to claw his face off, to shed his skin and see the shape of the soul inside.</p><p>If he died, what would his ghost look like to Klaus? Now <em>there</em> was an idea…</p><p>“I’ve gotta admit…”</p><p>Vanya’s soft voice cut through the wasteland of his mind. Greenery bloomed at the edges, creeping vines and flowers amongst the dust and smoke and wreckage. Suddenly he remembered—there were some distinct advantages this timeline had over the Apocalypse.</p><p>Breathing deep, he released his death grip on the mug and met her gaze.</p><p>She was smiling. “I can tell you’re not thirteen anymore,” she said, “but I can’t picture you as an old man either.”</p><p>His heart swelled at the gift she had just given him—<em>not thirteen anymore</em>. A gift larger than she could understand. And given so casually, lighthearted, meant to tease as much as to uplift.</p><p>All he let show on his face was an amused quirk of the lips. “Well, living in the Apocalypse was really only living a half-life,” he said. To Vanya and Vanya alone would he admit the toll the future had taken on him. Of his, perhaps, somewhat stunted mental growth, limited as he was for so long in his environment and stimuli. “Maybe I should only add half the years to my age.”</p><p>“How old would that make you?”</p><p>“About thirty-six, thirty-seven maybe.”</p><p>“Just a few years older than me.”</p><p>They shared a smile, and Five knew there was nothing in it but still he had to look away, cheeks coloring either with shame or anger. He wanted to respond with a snarky, <em>Still the oldest</em>. She deserved that, deserved his nonchalance, his camaraderie, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. If he opened his mouth now, there was no telling what might come out.</p><p>After a moment Vanya crossed her arms, staring contemplatively over the counter. “You know, I’ve realized something.”</p><p>Five scraped a fingernail down the side of his empty mug. “What’s that?”</p><p>“Time is <em>weird</em>.”</p><p>He laughed, surprised. It was impossible to remain maudlin for long with Vanya at his side. Her wit and humor and gentle nature put him at ease even when he didn’t think it possible. Not even Dolores, though he’d truly loved her, had such a calming influence on him.</p><p>“That’s one word for it,” he agreed.</p><p>“Seriously, how do you do it?”</p><p>Hiding the intensity of his affection as best he could, Five met the gaze of her dark, soulful eyes. They glittered with curiosity.</p><p>Five thought he’d never seen anything more beautiful than his sister.</p><p>“How do you control something so… intangible?” she asked. “Sound waves at least exist physically in the world, even if we can’t see them.”</p><p>“You don’t ‘control’ it.”</p><p>Five was well aware that his attitude towards Vanya was drastically different than towards any of his other siblings. Directed at Diego, that same sentence would drip with scorn, impatience. For Vanya he had all the patience in the world. No, more than that. He <em>liked </em>explaining things to her. Getting to share with her and see the brightness of her eyes when she understood some new idea.</p><p>He was lucky no one had called him out yet for his obvious preference. Though he suspected that was because none of them could even imagine it, the why of it, not even in their darkest, wildest daydreams, and the reason for that made him angry all over again. They all looked at him every day, and yet not one of them saw him. In their eyes, if they knew what really went on in his head, if they understood the way he looked at Vanya, they’d think him wrong. Sick.</p><p><em>I’m not</em>, he told himself. <em>I’m </em>not<em>. I’m not a child. I’m not what they think. There’s nothing wrong with me, with how I feel. I’m not sick</em>.</p><p>He finished his answer, not a hint of his thoughts in his impassive expression. “You manipulate it, coax it into doing your bidding—or try to, anyways. We all know how well that usually works out.” The ‘for me’ was implied.</p><p>“You saved us all.”</p><p>A hand, as soft as her voice, settled onto his arm. Five tried not to tense as his heart rate kicked up several notches.</p><p>“Hey,” she said, ducking her head towards him, forcing him to look at her. “You stopped the end of the world and then brought us all back to where we belong. I’d say that worked out pretty well.”</p><p>It hurt too much—he couldn’t help it. Voice like gravel, he said, “<em>I</em> don’t.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I don’t belong.”</p><p>Her eyebrows shot upward. “What are you talking about? You belong here just like the rest of us. At home, with your family.”</p><p>“I don’t <em>have</em> a home.”</p><p>“Of course you—”</p><p>“<em>Look</em> at me, Vanya,” he seethed, glaring at her. And she did. Her brown eyes met his narrowed ones, without judgment, without fear, without pity. She just looked. “I’m a <em>child</em>—except I’m <em>not</em> a child. I don’t belong <em>any</em>where. My life ended that day I ran out of the Academy and I can’t get it back and I don’t <em>want</em> it back. No one will ever see me for what I am because even <em>I </em>don’t know what that is. I shouldn’t even exist. I belong <em>no</em>where, with <em>no</em> one.”</p><p>“Oh, is that how it is?” said Vanya, and Five blinked. She looked angry, a cold, harsh, strong cut to her features that was still so new to him, so foreign from the timid girl he’d known. “Things are hard, so you don’t care about <em>any</em>one anymore?”</p><p>“I didn’t say I didn’t <em>care</em>—”</p><p>“Not even me?” She ignored him, as though he hadn’t spoken. Five could only gape at her. This wasn’t how he’d anticipated the conversation going. Why was she <em>angry</em> at him for being damaged? A little hypocritical, wasn’t that? His own anger rose up in response, until he was vibrating with it.</p><p>Wait, no. That was the diner. Vanya’s hair floated about her as if caught in a breeze and the diner rattled around them from the force of her powers. He was so stunned—she’d been doing so <em>well</em> lately with controlling her powers, reining in her emotions, what had gotten <em>into</em> her?—that he couldn’t even speak.</p><p>“I waited for you for <em>sixteen years</em>, Five. I <em>never</em> stopped believing you were out there. That someday my best friend would come back to me.”</p><p><em>Best friend</em>. All of Five’s residual anger was extinguished in a burst of joy.</p><p>“Vanya, I didn’t—”</p><p>“And now that you’re here, you want… what? To give up? To leave me again?”</p><p>Cracks splintered a few of the empty glass doughnut cases and a chair toppled over.</p><p>“Vanya!”</p><p>His shout seemed to get through and she blinked at him in renewed awareness, her eyes shifting back from white to brown. He gestured at the still-shaking diner around them. Embarrassment flushed her cheeks red and she inhaled, the chaos ceasing immediately. She looked away.</p><p>“Hey,” he said, gentle. “Are you okay?”</p><p>“I’m fine.” Her voice was hoarse, like she’d been screaming. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“No, it’s… <em>I’m</em> sorry. I didn’t mean to…” He sighed, running a hand through his hair.</p><p>Nice, thick, dark hair. One of the very few perks to his body’s age regression.</p><p>“I thought about you, you know.” His voice was as quiet as it had ever been. “Not just… <em>all </em>of you. But <em>you</em>.”</p><p>She looked over at him. “Yeah?”</p><p><em>More than I’ll ever tell you</em>, he thought. He wasn’t unaware that Dolores’s resemblance to Vanya was one of the things that drew him to her in the first place, long before companionship turned to love.</p><p>He nodded. “Every day that I was there, and then some.”</p><p>She smiled hesitantly. “I—” She cut off, cheeks going red again.</p><p>Intrigued, Five couldn’t help but smirk and lean forward. “You what?”</p><p>Vanya laughed a little—god he loved her laugh—and relaxed.</p><p>“I left the lights on for you.”</p><p>The smile slid off his face. Air caught in his lungs.</p><p>“For years. And I would… I would leave out a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich for you every night.”</p><p>A peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich. The first thing he’d eaten after he got back. His favorite. Even after decades, even after he’d tasted exotic dishes and gourmet recipes from all over the world during his years with the Commission.</p><p>Her eyes twinkled, inviting him to share in the joke and laugh at her expense.</p><p>Except he couldn’t. Something was strangling him, squeezing his chest with all the force of Ben’s tentacles.</p><p>He loved her. He loved her <em>so</em> much.</p><p>But the timing was wrong.</p><p>Time was always wrong.</p><p>And he could never make it right.</p><p>When she noticed the serious shift of his mood, her smile faded away, replaced with a sincerity that damn near broke his heart.</p><p>“I don’t care what you look like,” she said. “I don’t <em>care</em> what we’ve been through. I’m sorry, but I don’t. You’re here again and that’s all that matters to me. You belong with <em>me</em>, Five.”</p><p>She placed her hand on his. He swallowed. His fingers curled, squeezing hers back.</p><p>“Maybe you’re right.” Five looked over at her, meeting her smile with one of his own. “Maybe I do have a home.”</p>
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